100 Books Like Island of Hope

Andrea, Silvia, Ana, and Pamela were impoverished youth when the Sandinista revolution took hold in Nicaragua in 1979. Against the backdrop of a war and economic crisis, the revolution gave them hope of a better future - if not for themselves, then for their children. But, when it became clear that their hopes were in vain, they chose to emigrate. Children of the Revolution tells these four women's stories up to their adulthood in Italy. Laura J. Enriquez's compassionate account highlights the particularities of each woman's narrative, and shows how their lives were shaped by social factors such as their… show more.

There are more than 700,000 Bulgaristanli migrants residing in Turkey. Immigrants from Bulgaria who are ethnically Turkish, they assume certain privileges because of these ethnic ties, yet access to citizenship remains dependent on the whims of those in power. Through vivid accounts of encounters with the police and state bureaucracy, of nostalgic memories of home and aspirations for a more secure life in Turkey, Precarious Hope explores the tensions between ethnic privilege and economic vulnerability and rethinks the limits of migrant belonging among those for whom it is intimated and promised-but never guaranteed.

In contrast to the typical focus on… show more.

Since the arrival of the Puritans, various religious groups, including Quakers, Jews, Catholics, and Protestant sects, have migrated to the United States. The role of religion in motivating their migration and shaping their settlement experiences has been well documented. What has not been recorded is the contemporary story of how migrants from Mexico and Central America rely on religion-their clergy, faith, cultural expressions, and everyday religious practices-to endure the undocumented journey.

At a time when anti-immigrant feeling is rising among the American public and when immigration is often cast in economic or deviant terms, Migration Miracle humanizes the controversy by… show more.

This innovative book documents border porosities that have developed and persisted between Greece and North Macedonia over different temporalities and at different localities. By drawing on geology's approaches to studying porosity, Dimova argues that similar to rocks and minerals that only appear solid and impermeable, seemingly impenetrable borders are inevitably traversed by different forms of passage.

The rich ethnographic case studies, from the history of railroads in the southern Balkans, border town beauty tourism, child refugees during the Greek Civil War, mining and environmental activism, and the urban renovation project in Skopje, show that the political borders between states do… show more.

Ellis Island, 1902: Two women band together to hold America to its promise: "Give me your tired, your poor ... your huddled masses yearning to breathe free..."
A young Italian woman arrives on the shores of America, her sights set on a better life. That same day, a young American woman reports to her first day of work at the immigration center. But Ellis Island isn't a refuge for Francesca or Alma, not when ships depart every day with those who are refused entry to the country and when corruption ripples through every corridor. While Francesca resorts to desperate measures… show more.

'You don't read this book, you live it' Erin Kelly

'Holds the reader under a spell from start to finish' O, the Oprah Magazine

'If you're going through Elena Ferrante withdrawals, this is the book for you' Harper's Bazaar

If Stella Fortuna means 'lucky star,' then life must have a funny sense of humour.

Everybody in the Fortuna family knows the story of how the beautiful, fiercely independent Stella, who refused to learn to cook and who swore she would never marry, has escaped death time and time again.

From her childhood in Italy, to her adulthood in America, death… show more.

In 2015, Germany agreed to accept a million Syrian refugees. The country had become an epicenter of global migration and one of Europe's most diverse countries. But was this influx of migration new to Germany? In this highly readable volume, Jan Plamper charts the groups and waves of post-1945 mobility to Germany. We Are All Migrants is the first narrative history of multicultural Germany told through life-stories. It explores the experiences of the 12.5 million German expellees from Eastern Europe who arrived at the end of the Second World War; the 14 million 'guest workers' from Italy and Turkey who… show more.

Immigration is one of the most fraught, and possibly most misunderstood, topics in American social discourse-yet, in most cases, the things we believe about immigration are based largely on myth, not facts. Using the tools of modern data analysis and ten years of pioneering research, new evidence is provided about the past and present of the American Dream, debunking myths fostered by political opportunism and sentimentalized in family histories, and draw counterintuitive conclusions, including:

* Upward Mobility: Children of immigrants from nearly every country, especially those of poor immigrants, do better economically than children of U.S.-born residents - a pattern… show more.

Delineating an approach to activism at the intersection of queer rights, immigration rights, and social justice, Queer Migration Politics examines a series of "coalitional moments" in which contemporary activists discover and respond to the predominant rhetoric, imagery, and ideologies that signal a sense of national identity. Karma ChAvez analyzes how activists use coalition to articulate the shared concerns of queer politics and migration politics, as both populations seek to imagine their ability to belong in various communities and spaces, their relationships to state and regional politics, and their relationships to other people whose lives might be very different from their… show more.

This book explores the question of who New Zealand's Pakeha ancestors were. It presents and interprets the findings of a major statistical analysis of immigrants from the United Kingdom over a century and a half drawn from death registers and shipping records. The book looks at for the first time and in detail such issues as the geographical origins of the founding ancestors, their occupational and class background, their religions and their values. Did our forefathers and mothers come from particular areas of Britain, did they tend to practise certain occupations, were they Catholics or Protestants, working people or aristocrats?… show more.